


Electric Sheep

by eveshka



Series: Tales of the Dawn King [50]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 12:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12864237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eveshka/pseuds/eveshka
Summary: Rating: TWarnings: NoneCharacters: Prompto Argentum, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus AmicitiaTime Period: Takes place during Chapter 2 of To Cast Away ShadowLocation: Zegnautus





	Electric Sheep

He opened his eyes and looked around disbelievingly. No. Freaking. Way. Zegnautus. What. The. Hell. He hadn’t been here since… a flicker of movement caught his eye and- _Noct?_ Prompto didn’t even give it a second’s thought. He ran after his best friend. “Noct! Noct, hey wait up!”

Down the hall, around a corner, Noctis was nowhere in sight. Prompto hurried to catch up; there weren’t any doors for the Prince to have slipped through. Noctis was just faster than Prompto, which was hard to believe when he thought about it. Prompto ran like the wind. Noctis threw himself from one point to the other.

That had to be it: Noctis was warping from point to point in order to keep Prompto from being able to catch up with him. Not for the first time, Prompto found himself wishing that he had the same abilities that Noctis did, but then that would mean that Prompto would be a prince of Lucis and no way, thank you _very_ much.

Then he wondered why Noctis was warping away from him, and about that same time, his body seized as something slammed into him, knocking him backwards with the force of an angry… Noctis? “Dude, what the-“ It came out as a metallic whine, and Prompto’s mind flinched at the sound. That wasn’t his voice. What the hell…?

“Damnit,” Noctis wheezed, pulling his father’s blade free and sending it back into the ether as Prompto watched. “Where do these things keep coming from?”

_Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t-_ Prompto looked down. His body, if he could even call it that, was metal, a gaping hole in ‘his’ lower torso. It should have hurt. Prompto Argentum felt nothing. Instead, his vision snapped to black with a strange little zap, and he felt himself fall.

 

He landed on his feet, vision steadying as he looked around himself. He was still in Zegnautus, though a different part. This looked like… a deployment room. He’d just been jettisoned from one of the coffin-like holding rooms. How had he gotten there? How long had he been in there?

Prompto took three steps, freezing when he saw Noctis raise his hand, the crystal in the Ring glowing a fierce white light. “Noctis? Dude. It’s me. Prompto!” He couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice. All he could feel was a strange tight sensation, and then everything fuzzed out.

 

When he blinked, Prompto was in a room filled with electronic cabinets, things he recognized as the clunky old computers that the Empire relied on as opposed to the sleek and far more futuristic ones in Insomnia. He lowered his rifle (where the hell had that come from?) and moved through the room, stepping over corpses of MT units.

 Could you call them corpses? Were they ever truly alive to die? Questions to which Prompto had no answers. He shook the thoughts from his mind and looked back at the rifle. There was an MT hand on it. He shrieked, jumping back, realizing at the same time that the hand was in the position as if it was the one… he flexed his hand and the MT fingers moved.

“Shit…” he breathed, but no sound escaped him. This made no sense. How was he moving the… wait, was it a glove? He dropped the rifle and tried to pry off the metal. Both hands. He looked further. His legs. He was encased in the metal armor of an MT. That meant… a sound caught his ear and he looked up with sickening dread.

Noctis Lucis Caelum stood in the doorway, pale, resigned. As Prompto watched, the young king hefted his father’s sword and raised his hand. The Ring started to glow, and Prompto closed his eyes, willing himself to be anywhere but there.

 

He opened his eyes to a ceiling he barely recognized as the ceiling in one of the rest rooms in Zegnautus. Slowly, and as silently as possible, he lifted a hand and saw normal pink skin. He sighed in relief and sat up to look around the room. Ignis was sleeping in the bottom bunk next to him, Gladiolus asleep at the watch, his head lolling backwards in the chair.

Prompto might have scoffed if he hadn’t heard a sound outside, and he grabbed his pistol from his leg and when he cocked it, he heard Gladiolus wake. “Two MTs outside the door. They haven’t tried it yet but this door won’t take much.”

Gladiolus grunted, and Prompto took aim, waiting, breath steady, nerves steeled and still. Nothing happened. Still he waited, hands steady. Eventually, the footsteps of the MTs stomped off and Prompto released the trigger.

“Did they wake you up?”

“Haven’t slept,” he lied. Well, it wasn’t much of a lie. He couldn’t call that nightmare _sleeping_. He shifted to replace the pistol in its holster, and then turned over on his side, away from the door. Away from Gladiolus.

“Look, Prompto-“

“Save it. Don’t care. We get out of here, I’m done. Do what you want. I can’t do this anymore.” He closed his eyes, dismissing Gladiolus, and pretended to sleep. Perhaps, eventually, he’d fall asleep for real.

 

His last thought before the hand of sleep dragged him down was _Do MTs sleep, and if they do… do they dream of-?_


End file.
